The Real Inflation Fear - US Food Prices Are Up 19% In 2014

We are sure the weather is to blame but what happens when pent-up demand (from a frosty east coast emerging from its hibernation) bumps up against a drought-stricken west coast unable to plant to meet that demand? The spot price (not futures speculation-driven) of US Foodstuffs is the best performing asset in 2014 - up a staggering 19%...

Reduction in quantities. Increase in price. Reduction in wages (and employment). One shouldn't look to wait until one's head is in the croc's mouth before realizing that it's heading in a bad direction...

Had to drive to Altlanta for business Monday. I hate going into that damned concrete vortex of consumption. Grabbed a $26 steak at Longhorn. It was fatty and substandard meat. I ate about 70%. They did give me a giant mini loaf of bread with fake butter. Threw the bread away as I eat a mostly paleo diet. If I couldn't have expensed the meal, I would have brought food from home and eaten in the car.

Not only is restaraunt food outrageously expensive - they are cutting every damn corner in the book. That was damn cheap meat they were serving. Trying to fill you up on cheap white bread while serving a fatty cut of meat.

It's an odd experience to ride down the road and see dozens of eateries and not be interested in a damn one of them. I'd much rather buy a few saltenas off a roadside vendor in Bolivia than pay $25 for an American nothing burger.

If you relocate outside the USA, your property, your self, you won't have to pay. They won't knock down your door in another country for it & they can't use electronic government means on physical tangible goods like food, a house far away from the USA & gold, silver, etc., physically stored.If you've electronic bank accounts, you will be pooched.

Freezer dependeny has me nervous :-( I have one (chest freezer) set up as a chiller and one day the controller just freaked and it let the thing run as a freezer and wiped out a buch of stuff. Just one day from running nearly three continual years! Why?

BTW - Chest freezer set up as fridges are very economical to run. Anyone doing solar would be best advised to go this route...

Really? Not propane? One of these things will work when the sun isn't out... batteries are none too cheap either. Very polluting for the chemicals when done.Sure, propane has its problems, nothing's perfect but if I had to choose sourcing propane vs sourcing batteries... I'd probably want to do the propane for a freezer.

"And growing real food does not require that much energy either because it is mostly manual labor."

Either work needs to be done or not. Work is work, it takes energy no matter what is responsible for it. If humans are doing the work then they're going to absolutely burn more energy than they would otherwise do (by not doing the work). I'll admit that humans are likely more efficient at burning food calories than our human-engineered engines are at burning fossil fuels (all the waste heat), but I do know when I'm working hard I tend to heat up pretty good...

The real equation change starts with transportation costs. Distance to markets will "increase."

Wait until the dollar tanks and they are forced to feed the military/FEMA/Homeland by promising food and shelter. Dot.gov will raid the farms and confiscate any available grains and livestock in the name of national security. The beast has to eat and will cannibilize itself but will attempt to take us with it.

"Dot.gov will raid the farms and confiscate any available grains and livestock in the name of national security."

Makes for interesting movies, but there are way too many small farms for this to happen in real life. No argument that it wouldn't happen at a larger scale, with corporations: and, really, it could be argued that the corporations took over Dot.gov."

Won't happen. Farm subsidies are in the Farm Bill & that's controlled now by Monsanto. They know how their bread gets buttered and they make sure it has Monsanto(tm) imprinted right into the genome of every sheaf of wheat that goes into the bread.

Monsanto & John Deere, don't forget JD (and Case/IH, AGCO etc). Now there's a marketing campaign! How many 'folks' do you see walking around (or driving around making narcissistic videos of themselves for FB) wearing a Monsanto hat? But you can be sure JD bends a few ears around K-street.

In the future, alien civilizations will dig up our i-pads and think that humans were very clever. We made personal food warmers (i- pads). They will also marvel at our preemtive attempts at water conservation (swimming pools and lawn irrigation)

At least it will show we didn't screw up so much there are no glacial periods anymore.While it's bad for us I'd guess humans will be gone long before the event starts. The Earth does need its cleansing cycles & that's one of them.

MDBogus : Gwynne Dyer put 2175 as the time the last 300,000,000 humans, huddled on the coasts of the Arctic Ocean, started to notice the rotten egg smell. The run up to 2175 wasn't pretty in his book 'Climate Wars'. If the methane bomb goes off, 2175 may be way too optimistic. Hot-House Earth will go on quite long before the pounding waves of orbit cycles, solar radiation, and tectonics wash any the last vestiges of the Anthropocene and our attendant species. Anoxic 'Canfield Oceans' have no waves.

indeed. Years ago I was watchful of the chemocline & hydrogen sulfide menace. Lately I haven't been watching it. It didn't get less important but as you can understand we've had many distractions, some of which are potential world-enders as well.Such a merry generation we have.

Prices up 19%. Package sizes/weights down 19%. AP bed is still kicking out tomatoes and peppers, blueberries are ripening, have 10 pineapples coming in, couple hundred strawberries starting to flower, bumper orange crop this year, potatoes in barrels taking off, basil, squash, melons, and more 'maters waiting for transplanting, etc. Yeah, it takes some work but it cuts the grocery bill quite a bit and it's definitely healthier than fast food. And also put a deer and a couple hogs in the freezer this year.

Just back from a farming operation in the Central Valley. You can expect dairy prices to keep going up as dairy feed prices shall due to the drought conditions. Expect all the field crops as well as almonds, pistachios, walnuts, etc. to do the same as the West Side suffers further water cut backs so that the delta smelt is allowed to defeat Darwin's theory of evolution and survive at the expense of people.

How long has the West been embroiled in water rights battles? You'd think that humans would get it that there IS a limit. As bad as this may be just wait until the grain belt strains to pump water out of Ogallala.

Curious how for the last 5 or 6 month the weather systems have all been diverted north and south of Cali because of a high pressure system out in the Pacific. Several major food producing countries in South America have also had major weather related problems causing huge shortages in Sugar, Coffee and Soy among others. Personally I think there has been some geo-engineering going on that's causing this. Setting up the perfect storm for war, market collapse and commodity shortage, not necessarily in that order.

Of course it's geo-engineering. That's what I've been saying all long (for years now). This is how we get get price-inflation. Not money printing, it's price manipulation at the production level. These disasters are all engineered. Also, the bacterial contaminations are phony. What they do is stage an outbreak then force farmers (agri and livestock) to dump their inventory, which creates a shortage, then prices go up. It also affects retailers as they too are forced to clear out shelves of perfectly good meat and produce. The products always comeback higher than before, then go down in price, but never to where it was before the contamination. Damn, open your eyes people.

Well the obvious solution is to print more money like we have been doing the past few years and change the math and lie so it is not counted. All the while other nations are moving closer to creating a dueling reserve currency backed by tangible assets/commodities basket or "Traditions" such as gold.

Fake it till you make it or ya break it. The most important thing is that the uber wealthy were made whole and then some because they had cash fiats to put into the market and the lower class does not have to pay a dime "for now" because Uncle Cheddars is giving them nearly free everything and the Middle Class who funds both and suffers the most by having their savings confiscated to the tune of 600 Billion a year because they get 0% return on savings...well enjoy that small 401K and bend over for that Red,White & Blue "Freedom" Cock jammed straight up your Candy Crush Obsessed Asses.

There's probably some other artifacts at work (companies defering price increases until end of year, legislation artifacts like Obamacare costs kicking in, etc.) Most likely it's a combination of the many negative trends we've been seeing all arriving at once.

I figure that it's just a delayed build-up, that most companies have been holding back on price increases (doing other things to try and make it appear so in order to keep from losing market share), and that the margin compression has gotten to the point where they've got no other choice: kind of caught between a rock and a hard spot, market share on one side and shareholders on the other... (it's one reason why I'm not all that hard on companies, as I know none of this is easy).

My feed costs are holding pretty steady. They've actually dropped of late just as the mill owner told me they would (told me last fall that prices would be lower heading in to spring).

The upcoming elections in November will change NOTHING. Republicans and Democrats are just rival Mafia-like organizations.

I see the media are giving Rand Paul more favorable treatment than in the past. I expect the media will soon be promoting him as the next "messiah", just as they did Barack Obama in 2008.

The REALLY SAD part is that the American people will probably be SUCKERED once again!

What is it about people that they always seek ONE MAN to solve all their problems, rather than taking individual responsibility?

“The average man’s love of liberty is nine-tenth’s imaginary, exactly like his love of sense, justice and truth. He is not actually happy when free; he is uncomfortable, a bit alarmed, and intolerably lonely. Liberty is not a thing for the great masses of men. It is the exclusive possession of a small and disreputable minority, like knowledge, courage and honor. It takes a special sort of man to understand and enjoy liberty--and he is usually an outlaw in democratic societies. It is, indeed, only the exceptional man who can even stand it. The average man doesn’t want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” - Henry L. Mencken (1880-1956), Journalist and Author

Or have you already forgotten the 2012 Republican convention where delegates for Ron Paul were physically removed from the convention hall prior to the nominating vote? In addition, other Ron Paul delegates from several states (e.g., Massachusetts) were not "recognized" by the RNC and were totally excluded.

Yes. Rand Paul is now said to be the front-runner for the Republican nomination in 2016. Republican Party knows they screwed up big time with their mistreatment of Rand's father, alienating a significant part of their base (including me).

Sorry, guys, it ain't gonna work. I, for one, am done with the Republican Party forever, regardless of what they do from now on.

If Rand were able to actually change things for the better and get elected, they'd have him killed.

It wasn't just the republicans that mistreaded his father, it was pretty much everyone involved -- the (D)s, the (R)s, the media, TPTB, etc. It was a big clue Ron was legit. The entire system is corrupted, and votes don't matter other than to justify TPTB's choice of spokesman.

"What is it about people that they always seek ONE MAN to solve all their problems, rather than taking individual responsibility?"

It's called social engineering.

We are programmed from day one to believe in superheros that are able to save the day and protect us from crime and corruption: Batman, or a world disaster or evil-doers that are plotting our enslavement: Superman. When we grow up we're fed the same programming through other films. These films tend to portray cities or towns that are dominated by corrupt figures, including politicians and law enforcement. No one can do anything (the citizens are portrayed as impotent/defenseless) and then a loneman comes into the picture that cleans up the town: Clint Eastwood, Roddy Piper (They Live, which everyone should watch) We are not able to "see" the programming because it's so prevalent. Like somebody once said, "if you ask a fish what's the most significant aspect of its environment, the last thing it would say would be water". See through the programming, Bitchez.

It's going to be a long haul as the cow herds are also being reduced. Takes several years to bring these back up.

Most folks around me do grass. It's all I'd ever look to do (I'm angling toward it). And after years of study and monitoring and seeing that the grass folks have managed better than the grain folks I'm pretty much sold.

Switching to grass ain't something that is done over night. Actually need to shift genetic (new herds). And then grass management itself involves a lot of "art" as well as science: one has to be include incredible dynamics of the land used.

It's been a while since I've seen any reports from the industry, but I recall a couple of years ago that the industry was losing quite a bit per-head. How in the heck can anyone stay in business that way? When boom times were here there was the extra padding/profit from hides (high-end cars), but that's pretty much gone now, and I suspect that had been the difference. And, well, the ethanol impact (on conventional grain-fed).

I do the shopping. I have a background in restaurants and purchasing so I do it. I showed my wife the last few grocery bills. She was floored. I know what i am doing too. I do the math too. I will see how much a package is and the weight and what not. We buy a lot of organic. Every nickel counts. The inflation is becoming more noticeable. I'm sure having dollars instead of PMs is the way to battle this....not.

As bad as it appears one can take solice (?) in the fact that it's worse in most other places.

I've watched the CAD/USD exchange for several years now. Canadians were flowing across the border as the CAD actually got to be valued higher than the USD. Now it's down to $0.89. As inflated as things might be here in the US it was, for a time, cheap for Canadians, until now.

Even had I not encountered that fatal boating incident I very much doubt that I'd be applying PMs now. As shitty as it is I'll still opt to apply the USD. AND, whenever I think that things are "bad" I just look at my wife, as she's from the Philippines and can remind me what "bad" REALLY means: I never really have to question it, as I've been there and I know all about how most of the world lives.

Food in the US still continues to be extremely inexpensive. No doubt that food budgets are starting to increase, but that is as it should be given true fundamentals: Food, Shelter and Water. That people should be spending less on non-fundamentals isn't a crime, rather, it's about being wise. We've been so messed up for so long that we don't know what is right and what is wrong...

GS and its big playing field will collapse. As they suck more and more people will shift away from their system (no other choice), and while this is going to be painful it is necessary (meaning that people should look to embrace it- otherwise one is lobbying to "correct" a bad system, which will never fix it). BAD SYSTEMS FAIL- let them fail!

Um, we got hit with a monsoon in Socal just 2 weeks ago and it just rained this morning.California is technically a desert. And if nobody got the memo, deserts are permanent droughts.

It's actually wetter now than it was 10 years ago, thank God.

Also, in the 90's, the WHO produced a report that there was over 6 times the calories to meet the needs for a world population of 6 billion. And the only barriers to food now were corrupt governments and poverty (corrupt governments).

This report actually exists. Wall Street is using tax dollars (quantitative easing) to push up the price of food. I actually met a persian finance grad from a known school wannabe entertainer who said that "there's nothing else to make money off of".

Yes, these people from the middle east are very "Bright" (I'm being sarcastic).

I'd hope that folks there are cautious about trying to scale up as though that increase in moisture is permanent.

The WHO report said that corrupt governments were the ONLY barrier, or the most signficant one? I can understand the impacts of corruption, and I wouldn't take this lightly (though, one can hardly correct this when a country is poor [and unlikely to be anything other than poor]).

"Wall Street is using tax dollars (quantitative easing) to push up the price of food. I actually met a persian finance grad from a known school wannabe entertainer who said that "there's nothing else to make money off of"."

I've been saying (I'm in food production, small scale) that food prices have been suppressed. I suspect that Wall Street knows this. And I also suspect that anyone with more than a couple of brain cellls ought to understand that it all comes down to: Food, Shetler and Water. The "Shelter" thing has pretty much been hammered, and the "Water" thing is a bit tough to really earn anything off of. Pretty much leaves Food. I suppose that money going into Food is better than it being pulled out of.

I'm pretty much in agreement with that finance grad. This is why I'm taking up farming: well, I'm not so much doing it because I want to "make money," it's because I have to do something for work and I'd rather be my own slave than someone else's slave (I'd prefer to manage my own land, or be responsible for managing land than to be some "hired hand" and not have a full connection with the land). Someday I might be the boss of one of these "financial" grads.

I like Cape Cod potato chips. In Georgia 3.79 for 8oz. This price is similar to Frito Lay. I can buy 10lb bag of potatos for $5. With tax Cape Cod is $8 per lb. Should I buy meat or chips at that price per lb.?

I'd used cat food to up the protien levels in some layers feed that I'd found to have been shorted on/of protien (submitted the feed for analysis and found that it was way under the protien levels expected [dumped that supplier like a hot potato!).

Ironically, Cape Cod potato chips are assembled in West Virginia by illegal aliens, using domestic and foreign parts. The per pound cost is pricey, but think of the social benefit of keeping the illegals busy and off of welfare.

i don't think the west coast is seeing it like the rest of the country, there is plenty of good local produce, chicken is being priced about where it always is when its on sale, and a bit higher when its not. if this is rational then perhaps the added food cost is really transportation. walmart has a match their price program, take in any other supers ads and get those prices. walmarts main advantage is their own shipping fleet, they move and inventory better than anyone, and they buy and store fuel as well. now that fuel prices have been higher for a while they (and others) have lost their edge on fuel costs. the west coast is getting perishables from mexico, and not sure what their fuel prices are like, but it could be the difference.

i would say walmart is hurting in this part of the country, because the supers are buying from mexico, and walmart is a central distribution system. transportation costs are going to hurt the global trade, its not worth it to make a ten cent product in china and pay a quarter to ship it back to the us. the supply lines are breaking down (like ancient rome?)

HOA? You're speaking in terms of home owners. More and more people are renters, and most of the population is clustered such that there really isn't that much space with which to grow a garden, let along raise fowl.

I once rented and was going to approach my landlord with setting up an escrow account to hold money to re-do a lawn that I was wanting to dig up and create a garden. The guy was a big anal evangelist type and I never got around to testing this out before I ended up needing to move. I've got a bunch of land now and I can grow or raise damned near anything I care to (and am continually increasing such activities).

Is it that food prices are up or that the USD $ purchasing power is down? FED money printing is destroying lives. Those living in the emerging markets have been harshly impacted by FED dollar distruction led inflation. Big Gov't elitists are now considering redoing the inflation measures, because they think inflation is "over estimated" What a sham. According to shadowstats.com, 1990 based CPI is tracking around 7%, and 1980s based CPI is tracking around 9%, but today we are at 2%...and "they" say that's reflecting too high a number. Laughable. Oh, wait, maybe its the weather....

While the proper target for blame is seemingly dodging any attempts at being properly illuminated it really, in the long run, matters little. This is the end of growth. And for the US it's the end of empire.

Our measures will need to change. Rather, what we measure needs to change. And I don't mean what any "system" says are the things we should be concerned with measuring; I mean that every individual needs to take their own stock as to what is importand and how one expects to meet one's needs: no longer should anyone be expecting any "corrections" from a dying system...

This is true. I do most of the shopping in my house. Yes everything is creeping up over the last few years, but I havent been spending too much more. Getting whatever meat is on sale and some minor adjustments have kept things in check. I went last week and I couldnt even find the cheap shit olive oil for under 20 bucks. WTF happened? Its like the wheels came off

The stock, bond, commodity and currency exchanges have been reduced to gambling dens whereby the more powerful traders with deep pockets move the markets to maximize their own profits at the expense of the remaining not so powerful players. The big boys have enormous money power to move the markets in the direction which results in maximum profits for themselves. They effectively use the media to lure the other players in the market to a position where they would incur maximum loss.

The markets continue to rise till all short positions in the market are covered and the majority of traders move to the long side. Once this is done the market falls till all long positions are closed and short positions undertaken. Then rinse and repeat. The price mechanism has little to do with the actual demand, supply, fundamentals or state of the economy.

You see, there's one thing that's missing, PEOPLE. MORE and MORE people will become disenfranchised and drop out of the system; heck, the system doesn't really look to keep track of such things because it directly indicates how much the system is failing.

The Wall Street boys will do what they do, until they lose enough people to continue playing (supporting) their game. It's not a matter of IF but WHEN.

Pressure on food price is going to possibly grow much worse. The expected El Nino event is unfolding right now. The largest Kelvin wave of hot ocean water in welling up out of the West Pacific and headed east to form a possible SUper El Nino, on a scale of 1996-7, or, worse. This unprecidented deep ocean heat is welling up due to the collaspe of strong trade winds that have held it in check for sevreal years. This winds were the stongest trades ever recorded, but a series of storms have finally shut these trades down, all a massive El Nino event to look likely. The implication of a super El Nino on food prices is a disaster. Droughts and fires in food growing areas are baked into the cake, if these event proceeds at it's present development level.

If you think traders and investment houses do not take this El Nino event seriously, I suggest just following market trends in the next few months.

And it top it off, Arctic heat waves all winter have set sea ice off on a path to record lows, world temperatures are well in the top ten ever recorded by man range, and a giant El Nino heat transfer event from sea to atmosphere is going to super charge heat, drought and extrem rainfall. If, you live on a Hill Side in California, I suggest selling this summer, before it all go to hell.

Yes, global warming is not only real, it is provable, it is observable and denial is as useless expercise in blindness. To avoid this El Nino, we can only hope for an unforseen rebirt of the Trades or maybe even that is too late now.

The news of 2014 will not be Ukraine, by next fall it will be world weather.

You may be right. The drought has set up the soil for devestating flash flooding. The El Nino developing would plant the Pacific storm track right over Californina, record rain fall events and storms by winter would be the result. Look to the coast to Washington, the first effects of the developing El Nino are apparent even today, with many dead. As it goes forward that storm track should if all thing stay the same be planted over California later and drop epic rain events. Good luck if that is where you are.

Not to scare you little feller but a Dr. of Geology friend of mine said to me that he proved that "water flowed down Mission Valley at the rate of the Columbia River" during a known epoch. Mission Valley is the broad valley that runs east and west (along Highway 8) in San Diego, Ca..

The world's surface temperature has been highly unstable for 4.5 billion years ranging from minus 140 degrees to plus 6000 degress and you can attribute the last 100 years of temperature instability of 1 or 2 degrees to human activity ? Please tell me how you can prove that ?

You do not understand systems. A variable system is just as prone to forcing by an outside input than a totally stable system. High School physics, and proveable by simple experiment. The carbon cycle was natural, and is now well understood. Humans have broken the natural carbon cycle by digging up and burning fossil carbon. My job is not to teach basic physics on ZH. Denial is fine with me, go ahead. You are wrong, and I am right. To a 99.99% degree, as I trust the laws of physics to be the same in all parts of this univeres as all experimentation has shown.

If people want to ingnore facts and laws, that is their right. Not smart, but a right.

One volcano can produce more CO2 in one hour than humans and cow farts can give out in one year. Volcanoes , you know the thing the planet was covered in . CO2 levels are at their LOWEST levels ever , I trust the laws of physics more that I trust a few scientists who are speculating , and in fact some numbers show the planet has actually been cooling for the last 20 years ..... Don't beleive the hype , this is another green tax scam ...

You and your facts. Circumference of the earth is approximately 25,000 miles, and the mid-Atlantic rift is essentially a volcanic gash that loops entirely around the planet, but in a wandering way. Total length about 40,000 miles. One big, slowly out-gassing volcano. Thank heavens the darn thing is entirely underwater, and we don't have to worry about it dumping CO2 into the world's ecosystem. right?

Lemme see. During the age of the dinosaurs, CO2 levels were about 5X higher than they are today. Pretty sure it were cause of all of the Dino-Factories, Coal-fired-power-plants, and maybe the cigarettes they smoked then. (The dinos; humans were not yet invented). What? Gasp? 5x? But not due to humans 'cause the biggest mammal on the planet was about the size of a squirrel? Completely irrelevant to the discussion, I guess.

Weren't there people in the middle ages who like to beat themselves into an esctasy/pain state with flails and whips? The Flagellents? The global warming folks need to get in touch with their roots...

But wait, there's more. So, dinos lived with 5x times CO2 levels. Mustta been scorching hot, right? Well, science (the non High School variety), seems to peg typical ocean surface temps, during the time of the dinos, at 30C-35C. A quick peek at todays surface ocean temps shows, well, a range of 28C-32C, with an average around 30C. My oh my. So, the party line from AGW is that a modest percentage increase in CO2 is going to boil humans like lobsters, but for several hundred million years in the Earths past, when CO2 was 5x more prevalent, the averge temp was, ALMOST THE FRICKIN SAME?!?! "Greenhouse gas". You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

And finally, the stociastic equation for burning those nasty hydrocarbons (see oil is ultimately this really big stinking long chain of Hs, Cs, and a smattering of various contaminantes like those smelly Ss) essentially has 2 H2O molecules coming out for every CO2 produced. (I got that from High School). So if the claim is that humans have burnt a nasty percentage increase in CO2, then High School Physics tells us that we also should have produced 2x as much of an increase in H20. Um, to steal from Wendy's: Where's the water?

You are funny you are - where do you think all the carbon came from that is locked into fossil fuel ? It originally came from the atmosphere you dimwit - and where was it before that ? locked into the earths crust where it was expelled by geological activity. Before it was coal and oil it was organic life which existed on the surface of this planet in gas and liquid forms you moron.

And, dumbass, that process isn't happening again. We don't have billions of years of plant material stored up to re-use a second time, not unless all the machines shut down for a billion years and another species starts over again with fuel made from US.You're such a jackass. Go weigh your bitcoins.

-1 for you. The undersea volcanoes are already in equlibrium with their deep water environment as the carbonic acid there & other things like sulfur are fine for the extremophile microbes up close and the diffusion isn't causing heating underwater.See, CO2 reflection of infrared doesn't matter much that deep down because there is so little infrared at all. Most heat movement is by convection, not photon transmission. Most light can't go far in any wavelength at the bottom of the ocean.

And where's the extra water: it's being consumed by China & India where rivers are running dry. You forget the human population is expanding exponentially as are the machines we use, plus we put water into many industrial processes where again hydrogen & oxygen are split & never rejoined.

Can but may not. No guarantees.1 volcano will go off then stop (usually) whereas our machine (and fuel for machines) usage will grow exponentially.The volcano activity isn't rapidly increasing or decreasing in the last million years. Billion? I didn't check, but it's probably decreased a little in that time.CO2 levels are at the world-history highest ever possible while humans have been alive.Looking back to before humans were here as you are: this is bad. This means we can expect not to be around anymore with much higher Co2 levels.The earth won't miss us but will humans be so stupid as to drive up Co2 and pretend it does nothing, then kill off all our food crops? Then die? Really?You're that stupid but I'm not. Then again you're also dumb enough for bitcoin. I'm seeing a pattern here.